E3 2012: Dead or Alive 5 has Mad Respect for Virtua Fighter

Venerable fighting series Dead or Alive makes its post-Tomonobu Itagaki debut in September with Dead or Alive 5, and both new Team Ninja head Yosuke Hayashi and game director Yohei Shimbori are no doubt hoping for a better reception than what they received for Ninja Gaiden 3. We sat down with the pair of veteran game makers for a hands-on look at Dead or Alive 5 and a chat about Virtua Fighter, the failures of Ninja Gaiden 3, and more.

We began by sampling newly announced fighters Bass, who series fans know well, and Sarah, who makes a cameo from Sega’s pioneering 3D fighting franchise Virtua Fighter. Bass is a big man who plays big – almost Zangief-like, for you Street Fighter fans who aren’t familiar with DOA. He moves slow but swings hard. Flying drop kicks and elbows to the face will practically leave scars if they connect. Sarah, by contrast, unleashes flurries of light attacks. Backhanded uppercuts and reverse bicycle flip kicks highlight her offense. Power Blows – which can be sampled in the playable demo available now with the purchase of Ninja Gaiden 3 – are super moves that can fling foes into the interactive stages for near-fatal damage. Of course, you’re extremely vulnerable while charging up for these flourishes, so time them carefully. Or, to put it more matter-of-factly, “When you’re charging, you’re pretty much defenseless,” says Shimbori-san.

Bass and Tina gang up on Kokoro in Tag Mode.

Tag Mode returns from previous DOA entries, and you can pull off Power Blows here that involve both teammates. We saw Tina and Bass each grab one of Kokoro’s shoulders, lift her into the air, and slam her to the ground. These Tag Power Blows all feed into DOA5’s mantra of providing “fighting entertainment.” Similarly, every single stage is interactive. We saw The Show, a circus stage set in a round arena flanked by juggling clowns balancing on giant balls and a huge clown head at the far end. At one victorious moment, we managed to successfully land a Power Move while playing as Sarah that sent Bass flying into the giant wall-mounted clown’s mouth, where he was shot out of the fixture’s nose cannon and KO’d when he hit the opposite wall.

As our demo ended and we turned our attention to Hayashi and Shimbori, we noted how fighting game crossovers seem to be all the rage these days and wondered why they opted to partner with Sega for a Virtua Fighter hero. The answer couldn’t have been more humble, with Hayashi-san explaining, “Virtua Fighter kind of gave birth to Dead or Alive,” he began. “If there would have been no Virtua Fighter there would have [also] been no DOA. There's always been great respect for VF. It's an honor for us to have them in our game.”

Team Ninja takes their mantra of "fighting entertainment" to heart.

Naturally, we next wondered why they chose Sarah from the Virtua Fighter roster. Hayashi again had a respectful response: “Virtua Fighter was born from Sarah and Akira. They're sort of the face. They represent Virtua Fighter as a series.”

When asked if Team Ninja has made any tweaks or changes to the game based on fan feedback received from the playable alpha demo, Shimbori-san was quick to reply, saying, “Yeah absolutely! We got tons of feedback, [and] you can see some of the changes here [in the build playable on the E3 show floor]. For example, we changed hold system from a three-point hold to four-point hold. Also, the length of the power blow and facial expressions [have been changed]. We will continue tweaking until the final version.”

Ryan McCaffrey has been covering the Xbox world for 10 years. He used to own a DeLorean, which is weird. Follow him on Twitter, catch him on Podcast Unlocked, and drop-ship him Taylor Ham sandwiches from New Jersey whenever possible.